Presenter: Tarik Richardson
Mentors: Eric Richardson, President NAACP Lane County Chapter; Nathanael Andrade, History
Oral Presentation
Majors: History and African Studies
History is scarcely written by radical thinking in the current day; more often history is a tradition that is taught, passed down from teacher to student. In this transmission of knowledge biases from past times tint what is being learned. One such bias that has plagued history is that of White Supremacy which was rampant in the Colonial era. This supremacist ideology poisoned and corrupted history, with its effects lasting to this very day. White supremacist and colonist would state that Africa had no important history or noteworthy contributions to civilization until they were fortunate enough to be conquered by the powers of Europe. My research challenges this notion to the core; not only did African societies play an active role in history, but they were also key players in the development of society and civilization. This research titled, “A Different Kind of Barbarian,” examines the relationships between the Hellenistic societies of the time and foreigners or barbarians who surrounded them. In this examination of history, through Hellenistic era sources, we begin to see that the relationship that African societies and people–namely the populace and priestly class of Egypt and the Nubian states of Meroe and the later Axum–is inherently different with the Greeks than the rest of the barbarians. We then look at the legacy of this relationship through critical analysis of classical sources.